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THE PATH TOWARDS DEVELOPMENT: Rural and Urban areas.

In addition to the exclusion of certain ethnic groups, minorities, small scale producers and countries in the periphery in general there is another consequence of the current system that, surprisingly, affects both highly developed and developing countries: concentration; concentration and accumulation of wealth and people. All strategies used in order to tackle development may or may not work in certain countries, groups or areas but the truth is that even when they do work they mostly manage to develop only certain areas in the country translated into overpopulation in capital cities or massive immigration towards highly developed countries. This phenomenon, immigration, is not only seen across countries or when Africans migrate to Europe. It can be seen within a single country too and allows us to understand the problem in depth.

Concentration of wealth in capital cities is one of the most illustrative examples; seen for instance in the case of the Chinese capital city or even London itself. People migrate from cities outside as “development” and “opportunity” is now a synonym of big cities, a life of luxury and a job in a bank. This creates devastating conditions for countries, especially countries which their economy relies on products of the primary sector (mainly produced outside the capital city) and these countries are usually countries in the periphery. So that the consequences of this phenomenon are even stronger in developing countries where probably only one or two cities are “highly developed”.

In the case of places like Colombia and Brazil, other factors might affect the migration of people towards capital cities like civil wars, deforestation or force displacement. As these areas where these people are not seen as essential to the country´s development then they are not properly taken care off. In the sense that all the wealth concentrates on the main cities and so does investment. Is devastating because rural areas and the products being produced there are essential for the country’s’ economy but they are ironically forgotten and farmers later became taxi drivers or cleaners in the city. They might be able to live a better life now but they remain uneducated and with no opportunities to improve their standards of living. On the other side, is not only detrimental for these part of the population but to the economy itself because, as food production decreases, the reliance of food exports and other products increases which will later perpetuate instability, dependence, bad distribution of wealth and inequality. Having covered different groups and perspectives under the actual framework one can later conclude that the actual system only perpetuates the poverty and inequality in countries in the periphery and it benefits only small parts of the economy and people at a cost of a big spoilage of rural areas and probably makes life in the cities even harder. Furthermore, there are even consequences for highly developed countries that need to tackle the problem of excessive immigration towards their “paradise”. The current system does not create economically independent and strong arising countries but highly dependent and unstable ones.